“The challenge is formidable,” Torsten Stocker of the market research firm Monitor Group told the Journal.

The apparel company recently opened an action-sports store in Shanghai, and launched an exclusive line of Nike Zoom Air Lebron 9 basketball shoes in the region. It’s also sponsoring a snowboarding competition in Beijing in 2012, and is increasing its number of sports celebrity endorsements.

All of this aligns with the PRC General Administration of Sport’s plan to create 4 million sports-related jobs over the next five years, reports the China Business Review. It wants to “raise the share of China’s GDP spent on the sports industry from less than 0.5 per cent ($23 billion) to 0.7 per cent ($62 billion) over the period.”